Domestic Manners of the Americans

by Frances Trollope, Elsie B. Michie (Editor)

Overview

'it appeared to me that the greatest and best feelings of the human heart were paralyzed by the relative positions of slave and owner'

In Domestic Manners of the Americans Frances Trollope recounts her travels through America between 1827 and 1830, describing her voyage up the Mississippi from New Orleans, a two-year stay in Cincinnati, and a subsequent tour of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. A transatlantic best-seller on publication in 1832, its forthright criticisms of American manners encompassed spitting, religious extremism, ladies' dress, the relentless pursuit of money, and the unequal treatment of women, slaves, and Native Americans. Witty, satiric, and hugely entertaining, Trollope also had a serious purpose in warning her compatriots of the consequences of democratic freedoms at a time of great social change in England. Deploring slavery and the hypocrisy that sanctioned it, she fuelled abolitionist debate on both sides of the Atlantic and so impressed Mark Twain that fifty years later he considered her book to be the most accurate portrait of American life in the nineteenth century.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199676873
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2014
Series:	Oxford World's Classics Series
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	182,249
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 5.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Frances Trollope (1780-1863) wrote her first book, Domestic Manners, at the age of 53 and went on to write over forty more after its phenomenal success. She travelled to America to assist in the founding of a utopian community in the face of financial ruin in England, and after several failed business ventures began to gather material for her travel book. She supported six children after the death of her husband, one of whom, Anthony Trollope, followed her into writing.

Elsie B. Michie is Professor of English at Louisiana State University. Her books include Outside the Pale: Cultural Exclusion, Gender Difference, and the Victorian Woman Writer (1993) and The Vulgar Question of Money: Heiresses, Materialism, and the Novel of Manners from Jane Austen to Henry James (2011). She has edited a Frances Trollope novel, The Lottery of Marriage (2011), complied the Oxford On-Line Bibliography for Frances Trollope, and published essays on Trollope in Partial Answers and Women's Writing.

Table of Contents

Chapter I.1
	Entrance of the Mississippi
	Balize
Chapter II.4
	New Orleans
	Society
	Creoles and Quadroons
	Voyage up the Mississippi
Chapter III.10
	Company on board the Steam-boat
	Scenery of the Mississippi
	Crocodiles
	Arrival at Memphis
	Nashoba
Chapter IV.19
	Departure from Memphis
	Ohio River
	Louisville
	Cincinnati
Chapter V.26
	Cincinnati
	Forest Farm
	Mr. Bullock
Chapter VI.32
	Servants
	Society
	Evening Parties
Chapter VII.37
	Market
	Museum
	Picture Gallery
	Academy of Fine Arts
	Drawing School
	Phrenological Society
	Miss Wright's Lecture
Chapter VIII.43
	Absence of public and private Amusement
	Churches and Chapels
	Influence of the Clergy
	A Revival
Chapter IX.49
	Schools
	Climate
	Water Melons
	Fourth of July
	Storms
	Pigs
	Moving Houses
	Mr. Flint
	Literature
Chapter X.57
	Removal to the Country
	Walk in the Forest
	Equality
Chapter XI.64
	Religion
Chapter XII.70
	Peasantry, compared to that of England
	Early Marriages
	Charity
	Independence and Equality
	Cottage Prayer-meeting
Chapter XIII.78
	Theatre
	Fine Arts
	Delicacy
	Shaking Quakers
	Big-Bone Lick
	Visit of the President
Chapter XIV.86
	American Spring
	Controversy between Messrs. Owen and Campbell
	Public Ball
	Separation of the Sexes
	American freedom
	Execution
Chapter XV.98
	Camp-Meeting
Chapter XVI.104
	Danger of rural Excursions
	Sickness
Chapter XVII.108
	Departure from Cincinnati
	Society on board the Steam-boat
	Arrival at Wheeling
	Bel Esprit
Chapter XVIII.114
	Departure for the Mountains in the Stage
	Scenery of the Alleghany
	Haggerstown
Chapter XIX.122
	Baltimore
	Catholic Cathedral
	St. Mary's College
	Sermons
	Infant School
Chapter XX.129
	Voyage to Washington
	Capitol
	City of Washington
	Congress
	Indians
	Funeral of a Member of Congress
Chapter XXI.142
	Stonington
	Great Falls of the Potomac
Chapter XXII.145
	Small Landed Proprietors
	Slavery
Chapter XXIII.153
	Fruits and Flowers of Maryland and Virginia
	Copper-head Snake
	Insects
	Elections
Chapter XXIV.158
	Journey to Philadelphia
	Chesapeak and Delaware Canal
	City of Philadelphia
	Miss Wright's Lecture
Chapter XXV.162
	Washington Square
	American Beauty
	Gallery of Fine Arts
	Antiques
	Theatres
	Museum
Chapter XXVI.168
	Quakers
	Presbyterians
	Itinerant Methodist Preacher
	Market
	Influence of Females in Society
Chapter XXVII.177
	Return to Stonington
	Thunder-storm
	Emigrants
	Illness
	Alexandria
Chapter XXVIII.183
	American Cooking
	Evening Parties
	Dress
	Sleighing
	Money-getting Habits
	Tax-Gatherer's Notice
	Indian Summer
	Anecdote of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar
Chapter XXIX.192
	Literature
	Extracts
	Fine Arts
	Education
Chapter XXX.205
	Journey to New York
	Delaware River
	Stage-coach
	City of New York
	Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies
	Theatres
	Public Garden
	Churches
	Morris Canal
	Fashions
	Carriages
Chapter XXXI.219
	Reception of Captain Basil Hall's Book in the United States
Chapter XXXII.227
	Journey to Niagara
	Hudson
	West Point
	Hyde Park
	Albany
	Yankees
	Trenton Falls
	Rochester
	Genesee Falls
	Lockport
Chapter XXXIII.236
	Niagara
	Arrival at Forsythes
	First sight of the Falls
	Goat Island
	The Rapids
	Buffalo
	Lake Erie
	Canandaigna
	Stage-coach Adventures
Chapter XXXIV.249
	Return to New York
	Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

The best chronicle of the home and domestic life in antebellum America -- and of its municipal buildings, churches, museums, theaters, cities, and towns -- is still Frances Trollope's 1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans. -- Lingua Franca

Rochelle Gurstein

Frances Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans was a huge transatlantic sensation when it was first published in 1832. In it, Trollope used the cover of travel narrative to offer a not-always sympathetic portrait of the young United States that was brash, extreme, and more than a little naïve. Trollope published Domestic Manners at the age of 53, and it has come to stand for the entirety of her work, but this was far from the case. Thanks to Sara R. Danger’s painstaking editorial work in this volume and her insightful observations about transatlantic relations, Jacksonian America, early Victorian England, and Trollope herself, this new edition is a vital contribution that establishes the socio-cultural significance of both a woman and her times.” — Brenda Weber, Indiana University Bloomington

“Scholars, teachers, and students alike rely on Broadview’s ability to reframe familiar classics and recover neglected works, and Sara R. Danger upholds this tradition in her edition of Domestic Manners of the Americans. Though Domestic Manners was intended for her British audience ‘at home,’ Trollope’s unflattering caricatures so riled the American public that her book created a transatlantic publishing phenomenon. This new edition reminds us why Charles Dickens called the book ‘one of the great pioneer exercises in transatlantic disparagement,’ and offers readers a feast of Anglophone print culture.” — Pamela Corpron Parker, Whitworth University

From the Publisher

Scholars, teachers, and students alike rely on Broadview’s ability to reframe familiar classics and recover neglected works, and Sara R. Danger upholds this tradition in her edition of Domestic Manners of the Americans. Though Domestic Manners was intended for her British audience ‘at home,’ Trollope’s unflattering caricatures so riled the American public that her book created a transatlantic publishing phenomenon. This new edition reminds us why Charles Dickens called the book ‘one of the great pioneer exercises in transatlantic disparagement,’ and offers readers a feast of Anglophone print culture.

Pamela Corpron Parker Whitworth University

Frances Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans was a huge transatlantic sensation when it was first published in 1832. In it, Trollope used the cover of travel narrative to offer a not-always sympathetic portrait of the young United States that was brash, extreme, and more than a little naïve. Trollope published Domestic Manners at the age of 53, and it has come to stand for the entirety of her work, but this was far from the case. Thanks to Sara R. Danger’s painstaking editorial work in this volume and her insightful observations about transatlantic relations, Jacksonian America, early Victorian England, and Trollope herself, this new edition is a vital contribution that establishes the socio-cultural significance of both a woman and her times.

Brenda Weber Indiana University Bloomington